DIRECTING 'LEGACIES' DEVELOPMENT FOR RIBIX PRODUCTIONS 

I was back at Belco Arts this week, working with a rehearsal room full of actors at the invitation of regular collaborator Rachel Pengilly, who had asked me to lend my directorial skills to her script, Legacies: an epic tale about the true story of a group of young Scottish stowaways who take to the sea in search of adventure. In my experience, script developments can easily fall into a passive exercise of interminable discussions as everyone sits around a table for a week offering their opinions - this was not that. Actors were on their feet, playing, creating, improvising, and contributing a wealth of terrific material for Rachel to grapple with as she furiously rewrote between each day's session.

Nothing feeds me so much as helping actors flourish by helping fan the flames of their creative sparks. It felt like a really productive development that brought the show a big leap closer to fulfilling all its wonderful potential, and certainly fuelled Rachel as writer and director for the next part of the process.